This study was designed to evaluate the efficacy of training in hypnosis in reducing pain and anxiety in children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) undergoing bone marrow aspirations (BMA's). Patients/subjects were selected from the population of children between the ages of 6 and 10 years of age with ALL, receiving outpatient treatment in the Division of Hematology-Oncology at Childrens Hospital of Los Angeles. The design calls for randomization of 40 patients to either hypnosis or attention/placebo groups with stratification of the sample by sex. Baseline measures are collected along four dimensions: Behavioral observation, nurse ratings, structured self-ratings of pain and anxiety. Two training sessions are offered post-baseline and prior to the next outpatient bone marrow aspiration. Further sessions are provided prior to each of three post-baseline bone marrow aspirations and response to training is monitored using the four dependent measures. Seventeen patients accrued to the study in Year 1, 9 in the hypnosis group, 8 in the comparison group. Baseline data was collected on all patients. Fourteen of 17 patients have completed 2 sessions of introductory training (7 each in both hypnosis and comparison groups). Twelve patients have undergone at least one post-training bone marrow aspirations (6 each in both groups). Of these, (three patients in the hypnosis group and one patient in comparison group) have undergone 2 BMA's, and 2 patients (one each, in both groups) have completed the study protocol and have gone off-study (three post-training BMA's). Two methodological modifications were made. Hypnotic susceptibility testing was not done because the major pediatric susceptibility scales were, essentially, hypnotic inductions. Exposing comparison group patients to hypnotic induction would have confounded the controlled nature of the study. A quantified rating of the child's response to either hypnosis or the attention/placebo dimension was added as a factor to be correlated with treatment efficacy. All data were coded prospectively.